


Hollow House

by orphan_account



Series: Ghostly Boy [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Hale family - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, Just not in the same way, Kid Fic, M/M, Puppy Piles, Still Hale Fire, UA, Universe Alternation, ghost!stiles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-10
Updated: 2013-09-12
Packaged: 2017-12-18 09:40:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/878379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He has to crawl on his knees to look inside and Stiles is still frowning at him. "I built a home," he says grudgingly.</p><p>"It looks more like a lair, a wolf lair," Peter is invited inside just because that comment. </p><p>It's warm inside and Stiles settles in his lap and hums like he does when he doesn't speak.</p><p>"I'm here," he says before they fall asleep and Peter knows that it's a lie because somewhere someone's missing Stiles and will in the end come and take him back. He hopes that the sheriff doesn't bring a gun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Laura calls every Friday, the day were they usually would sit in front if the TV with chips and popcorn and watch a bad movie together with the family. They let the kids pick. He doesn't  pick up after that first time where he asks if Laura and Derek has it good in New York and he's met with dead silence.

The messages are piling up now and he considers to change number, just because. Sometimes he thinks that he is even more of a child than Derek, at least he is better at running.

-

It's Monday when the first thunderstorm booms over his head. Peter has never had a problem with them, but now the smell of burned ozon mix with the smell of ash and he hides in the cells that were used for wolves that hadn't found their control yet, he hides until the storm doesn't shout above his head anymore.

There is a boy on his doorstep when he opens the door the next morning. He comes with the smell of wet leaves and clean air and Peter lets him inside the house because he's crying and doesn't know where he is.

They sit silence and the boy doesn't ask about the hollow house and the burning man that sits beside him. (On the floor because he hasn't taken time to fix the house and all the furniture burned up in the fire, he doesn't want to fix anything because it won't be the same as before)

"My name is Stiles Stilinski."

"What kind of name is that?" Peter snorts, he really wonders what kind of name that is, though.

"My name, I picked it myself."

Somehow that makes sense. He isn't crying anymore.

"Aren't you the sheriff's boy?"

"Yes."

"I can take you home then," he has a car outside, he just hadn't used it since he got out from the hospital, since he drove Laura and Derek to the airport and refused to come with them. He thinks Laura hates him a little bit for that, for the forced role as a grown up he has given her. Maybe that's why he doesn't answer the phone.

"No, I can't go home anymore, can't I stay here?"

"No, you can't."

Stiles nods and then leaves, Peter isn't surprised that he doesn't stop him. He doesn't really care for the kid.

-

Autumn is a season if thunderstorm and when the second rolls in he doesn't have time to go down to the cells. He's in the forest eating a deer. It's raw and he hasn't even taken wolf form, he doesn't really care. He can't stand the smell of burned flesh.

When he starts to whimper there are suddenly small hands on his cheeks and the boy from the week before is there. He still has the same clothes. He pats Peter's cheeks until he can breath again, then he puts his small hands in front of Peter's eyes.

"That's okay, if you can't see it it's not there."

The breath from the boy is supposed to be warm, but it's cold and damp like the river. He stays in Peter's lap and then follows him home to the hollow house. It's not home though and somehow he knows that the boy doesn't have a home either so he lets him stay and they sleep together on the madress that Peter has on the floor.

-

He goes to town for the first time and buys a hike grill and some noodles, it's not the best meal for a little kid but he weren't a great cook before and is still feeding on raw dears. Stiles doesn't complain.

-

"Stiles, stop that."

There's ash piling over him and the wall creaks as Stiles push it over and over again. He seems to take delight in the blak smears on his hands and cheeks and Peter realises that he has never seen Stiles dirty not even after he hung around the woods for a week.

"You should rebuild the house."

"There is a lot of things that I should do."

"It's nice, you can build a home," Stiles smiles.

"There's no home if there's no one there but you."

Stiles frowns, a face that looks ridiculous on him because he can't really stay serious for a minute, which is irratating when Peter tries to teach him how the grill works.

Then he trudges away and Peter doesn't see him for a day. He hears him upstairs, and he thinks a little more of himself when he realise that it's concern that he feels.

When he goes to bed that night the blankets and the pillows has been built into a nest under a half burned log that makes a little cave in the corner. The madress is also there but it doesn't really fit inside the cave.

He has to crawl on his knees to look inside and Stiles is still frowning at him. "I built a home," he says grudgingly.

"It looks more like a lair, a wolf lair," Peter is invited inside just because that comment. 

It's warm inside and Stiles settles in his lap and hums like he does when he doesn't speak, like he's afraid of the silence.

"I'm here," he says before they fall asleep and Peter knows that it's a lie because somewhere someone's missing Stiles and will come and take him back in the end. He hopes that the sheriff doesn't bring a gun.

He didn't mean Stiles when he said you, he meant himself.

-

It's weird how Peter never thought about it. The woods are silent, at least around the hollow house, the animals keeps away because it smells both like beast and ash (and death). But he never thought about how silent Stiles is, how he can't hear his heartbeat even if he tries. (He's breathing is still there, like he's still trying to make each count.)

He doesn't think about it until the sheriff does turn up, he has a gun strapped on him but Peter thinks it's more because he just got of from work. They stare at each other and Stiles hides behind his leg with a face that's so hurt.

"You're Peter Hale."

"Yes." He doesn't want to give up Stiles, he's selfish like that.

"Ah, I met you in the hospital visiting my wife." He says it like its supposed to mean something, it doesn't though, Peter watched a lot of people dying, he was the only one that got a chance at the hospital.

"Is she good?" He still asks because the wife must be Stiles mother.

"She's recovering, will be out in a couple of days."

They're still staring at each other, the sheriff hasn't lowered his eyes yet to look at his son.

"Have you seen a boy?"

"Huh?"

"A boy around the age of seven? Wandering around lost?"

Peter stares at him, because that isn't even funny. Stiles grips at his pants and thugs.

"He can't see me."

"Mr Hale?"

Peter takes a deep breath, something like suspicion crosses the other man's face.

"Sorry, I was thinking about my daughter. She would be around that age now."

Now there's pity on the sheriff's face, and resignation.

"Don't you think it's a little far for such a small kid to wander?"

"Yeah," there's a beat of silence, "Thank you."

When he leaves Peter crouches down beside Stiles who isn't looking at him anymore.

"Your dead, that's why you can't find your way home."

Stiles nods.

"Are you here to haunt me, to mock me for all those that died?"

"I just didn't want to be alone."

Peter can understand that.

-

Sometimes in the nights Stiles will wake up, Peter always know when because then his breath will become deeper, like he's breathing water and his body will grow colder.

He burries his face against Peter's chest and Peter has only asked him once why he's afraid of the dark.

"Because the monsters in the dark, those things that scares you and make you cry. I don't want to be one of them."

So Peter lets him be scared of the dark, and maybe he's a little bit too. He doesn't want to be one of the monsters out in the dark either, even though he probably is.

The next day he starts rebuilding the house.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They find the body

The winter is already around when they find the body. There’s 23 messages from Laura.

The air is crisp, and it’s almost cold enough to burn his lungs when he runs too far too fast. The house is done, at least the outer walls, he had to go into Beacon Hill to find help with building the house,  couldn’t do it himself. They also had to buy a new madres, the other one had gone moldy and damp.

Stiles will always wait for him, sitting on the steps when he comes back from running (he always runs too fast, like he’s still hunted, like he's prey). Peter thinks he sits there the whole time he’s gone, but he’s not sure, because Stiles knows, knows what is happening in the forest and Peter is afraid that he will lose himself there if he’s not careful.

When the body is found Stiles knows. He’s sitting on the steps even though Peter is inside, slowly swinging his short legs, the wind breathing together with him and the rustling trees like voices above his head. Peter steps inside the kitchen and starts making mac n’ cheese, if he doesn’t both of them will forget to eat. When it’s ready he puts it on two plates and goes outside.

“Stiles, you need to eat,” he says when Stiles doesn’t take the plate.

He puts it beside the boy instead.

“Is there something out there?”

“My dad.”

“What’s he doing?”

Stiles looks at him, contemplating his face with a stern frown.

“He found me.”

And if that doesn’t make sense Peter doesn't really know what does. Peter takes a bite of the mac n’ cheese (he can somehow understand why Stiles doesn’t want to eat) and waits for Stiles to speak.

“Did you see them?”

“Them?”

“The lights,” Stiles whispers, like it’s a secret, and maybe it is.

Peter shakes his head.

“They’re really small, and they promised me stuff so I followed them inside the forest. And then I fell.”

“What did they promise you?” something's wrong with how he says that, Peter knows that.

“Stuff,” Stiles shrugs.

“ _Stiles_.”

Stiles shows the fork inside his mouth with the mac n’ cheese, and then squawks. Peter can wait, he often does.

**

Stiles shudders sometimes, like he’s cold. And the nights are becoming even colder, sometimes Peter isn’t even there to warm him, so he goes to town.

There’s a little store where he used to buy things for Derek and Laura. The clothes in the window are thick and Peter imagine warm. There’s also caps and gloves, but Stiles doesn’t like to be restricted, he's as tactile as the wolves, want to touch, _feel_ , so Peter doesn’t even look at them when he steps inside.

A nice woman helps him pick out a red hoodie, a little too big, but it’s warm and soft. He puts it in a bag and then goes to the store to buy food for them. He’s in the cereal aisle (he doesn’t know what kind of cereal children is supposed to eat, no matter what he said to the Sheriff he never actually had the chance to have kids, his wife was pregnant) when the sheriff together with a woman walks past him.

He hopes, he really hopes that he will be left alone, but they turn around.

“Mr. Hale.”

“Sheriff.”

The woman looks brittle, but she has Stiles eyes and moles and probably his smile. She doesn’t smile.

“This is my wife, Helen.”

Peter greets her, and she looks at his bag with something broken in her eyes.

“It’s a christmas present for my nephew,” Peter is fast to say when the sheriff gives him a suspicious look instead.  

“How old will he be by now?”

“Thirteen.” (Kate pretended to be a teacher, pretended that he needed her help with a project. And Derek believed her but failed to tell his parents about her, because teacher doesn’t go home to their students like that and sometimes Peter thinks she did more to him, but he doesn’t want to know because Derek is so young.)

“How nice,” he pauses, “I guess you have seen the papers?”

Peter shakes his head, he doesn’t find the need to learn what’s happening.

“My son was found, drowned in the river,” Helen shakes and Peter doesn’t understand why the sheriff presses on, “I suppose you don’t have to look for him anymore.”

And know Peter does, the sheriff thinks he had something to do with it. Peter wonders if he doesn't just want to blame someone, he doesn't say anything. He does not have anything to say because they only lost one person and Peter lost even himself in the fire.

(Before he leaves he goes to the bank and puts some money into Laura's bank because it is Christmas soon, and he doesn't know what to buy her or Derek.)

*

When he drives back the forest is alive. It’s something close to what he felt when he would run with his pack as wolves, every tree whispering, the earth shaking with anticipation and the creatures in the forest alive. It’s something like that, but more, and he realises that it’s not the forest he feels, but the river, the water. It trails through every creature, every plant and in the earth, under and above.

Stiles is waiting for him when he comes back, swinging his legs back and forth, back and forth. Peter parks the car and calmly gets out, then he goes for the bags, ignoring the whisky coloured eyes trailing after him. He walks past Stiles up the stairs, inside, leaving the bags on the counter before he comes back outside again.

“Stiles what did the light promise you?”

“Wolves,” Stiles says.

Peter tilts his head, because he was aware that Stiles knew what he was, already from the beginning when Peter didn’t know what Stiles was. But they never spoke of it, waiting for the other to start, to open their mouth to say something. Somehow it’s a game, a game that Stiles broke, because he said it first. And Peter understand what that means, Stiles isn’t going back, not now, not ever. Not because he can’t (even though it’s a part of it, like the river is a part of the forest) but because he somehow wants to stay.

“But that’s after.”

“After what?”

“We changed, mom and I. We changed place,” Stiles looks at him, “She’s alive, right?”

“Yes, she’s alive.”

He gathers Stiles in his arms, because he's the same, he would also change place to get his wife back, his unborn child. He’s grown up, however, he had the chance to live. Stiles is seven and he’s already dead because he decided that his mother’s life was worth more than him.

“You’re worth more to me,” Peter mumbles, “Don’t die for me.”

“They’re in the forest,” Stiles answers.

Peter doesn’t know who they are.    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for not updating for a while, I'm pretty sure that Laura and Derek will show up in the next chapter. If the story doesn't run away from me.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing another Teen Wolf fic but I couldn't put in as much of Peter Hale as I wanted so I'm feeding my need of him here wih a cuddly kid fic, which will not be all fun and shunshine ;)


End file.
